Wierd decorating question

I've seen this in pics. Looks okay.

What I've seen are people who paint their their trim in one room one color to go with the wall paint, and another color outside.

in this case two there are pocket doors so there is "air" between each side of the door trim, so the colros don't directly overlap. you really never see both at once. i think this can be done too, but I've been trying to find examples.

of course I think we'd need to work harder to tie together the adjoining rooms in some other fashion, so there is some cohesiveness throughout the home

I think you bought a townhouse, no? I'm an avid reader of the reno blogs on brownstoner.com. The 2 architect owners of Bed Stuy TH featured in the reno blogs have an interesting palette. I also like Mrs. Limestone's reno.

http://www.brownstoner.com/bedstuy_reno/

Check out the greeney mouldings in one room, and black in another.

In process of buying, yes. Now the challenging of preserving the old while trying to modernize!

Feel free to email me at nyc10023a at yahoo dot com.

Take this for what it is worth, but I think I'm fairly good at this sort of thing. My preference would be one trim color to, as you said, create visual cohesion and not make the place look like a circus tent of color. I don't like colors on trim generally, anyway, and prefer neutrals. That said, if you want to change the colors and feel it works with what you are trying to achieve aesthetically, do it. If you do it with confidence there is no "right" or "wrong" if it works for you. Just be sure to plan exactly where the color breaks will occur and that it will look neat. It's like the days I go with an unexpected pairing of a tie with a suit because I love the combo but which some people with lesser aesthetic sense may question at first. They invariably conclude, however, that I certainly know what I'm doing when it comes to style so they must be wrong about the tie not working. It is the man who makes the clothes and the owner who makes the home. Go for it.

I suppose you know this, but I would NOT recommend changing colors on the door. There is simply no tidy way of shifting colors from one side of a door to the next.

Yes, the door itself would not be different colors on different sides. It's basically keeping the original wood color (a glossy deep redish mahogony) on one side of the entryway (the hallway side) and on the living room side doing the trim white (all other trim/moldings in living room would be white as well). We'd tie the rooms together in other ways - the entryway would have big black and white checked tiling which would "match" the white woodwork in the living room. Basically, only the entryway would have the woodwork in the original color, but we'd modernize it with black and white tiling and jewel toned wallpaper. The surrounding rooms would have white woodwork and moldings but jewel toned furniture to tie the rooms together (not to mention matching the white woodwork with the tiling in the other rooms).

It's always hard to combine modern and old in unexpected ways - but it's fabulous and dramatic when done well.

Kspeak: I know someone who did exactly that, and it looks great.

thanks - may contact you offline

"There is simply no tidy way of shifting colors from one side of a door to the next." It's completely standard to paint every surface of a door the color chosen for the room that that surface opens/faces into -- including the hinge side, which faces the room that the door does NOT open into.

Otherwise, every door throughout a house/apartment would be painted exactly the same color. Look carefully and you'll see it all over the place.

And for a pocket door? Please!

Likewise a door frame -- of course the parts that show when the door is closed are a no-brainer, and for the "hidden" parts, which side of the door-stop-thingee-area does the door frame sit on? It either is or it isn't.

And by the way, an open door that features the colors of the next room makes a nice natural transition between the rooms.

Has anyone ever heard of NY apartments being painted by spraying instead of rollers and/or brushes? It seems standard in many other parts of the country, and gives smoother results. Lots of prep work though.

Yeah, but not onsite.

Why do you suppose that is? I don't think it's very noisy, or requires large equipment, or anything like that. I assume it's faster. Maybe there's more protective covering and removing it is more of a PITA in our buildings than in SFRs?

I don't know why, but I have asked for spray-painting and have the person want to take the doors off-site. My doors are horribly painted, and I need a re-do.

Oh, that totally makes sense for doors only. I mean whole rooms -- tough to take off-site, a bit easier to roller-paint, but presumably easiest to spray-paint in situ. Can't get enough Latin, can you?

P.J. O'Rourke once proposed a "bachelor" method of painting, where you spray-paint the dog and then let him loose in the middle of the room to shake the paint out of his fur.

dyed-in-the-wool dirty Republican that he is, his "bachelor" method should involve sheep.

alanhart, i see white doors and door frames a lot, but the adjoining rooms have two different colors. the door frame and doors though are one color.

i think the important thing is somehow tying the rooms together - think I can do this other ways though.

absolutely